Until recently, storytellers were limited to the distribution formats of TV, cinema, theatre and print. When developing stories, product and format came first, user experience and audience came second. Today, audience expectation is rapidly evolving.…

Many of the acclaimed German art house films that have made the festival rounds in recent years have the distinctive characteristics of the Berlin School. This movement has been associated with intimate characterdriven dramas such as Christian Petzol…

The Internet and interactivity have transformed the documentary, and documentarians are reinventing the language of storytelling on the web. Documentarian Katerina Cizek retraces her tracks in interventionist media-making through the digital age and …

“I enjoy playing the audience like a piano,” Alfred Hitchcock once said. The interconnectedness of audiences with cultural institutions via social media has profoundly changed the platform for the public‘s engagement with culture. Audiences are…

Internationally celebrated cinematographer Agnès Godard has been the longtime collaborator of Claire Denis, contributing her visual genius to the look of Denis‘ singular films. She photographed masterpieces including, Beau Travail, for which Godar…

Breaking onto the scene with a critically acclaimed, award-winning, and festival-hopping film is every filmmaker's dream, but what happens after you've made it big? That's when the real challenges start. Berlinale Talents alumni Ritesh Batra (The Lun…

World Building designates an iterative and collaborative narrative practice in which the design of a world precedes the telling of a story, producing new worlds beyond the rules of the reality in which we live. This World Building panel with experts …

Stories that evolve over several episodes and seasons can profoundly captivate the audience and gain engagement in unique ways. How can filmmakers innovate with the serial form to develop characters over a longer period? This session features accompl…

Time, space and freedom are important ingredients for a creative project, but how do filmmakers find a way to focus within the daily grind? Often, working with a collaborator or consultant who help to keep you inspired, productive, and challenged is …

How do filmmakers conceive and write the emotive scenes in their film without dialogue? How can one successfully plan and choreograph tone and feeling in a script? Denis Côté, who won the Alfred Bauer Prize at the Berlinale last year for his film V…

Producers Benjamin Domenech (History of Fear), Bertha Navarro (Pan‘s Labyrinth), Raymond Phathanavirangoon (Sandcastle) and Ada Solomon (Child‘s Pose) will discuss the role of producers, how they decide to take on film projects and their collabor…

Strategic branding is not just the stuff of stars – films by auteurs are also hyped and create a buzz by defining their aesthetic and targeting specific audiences. Producers and marketing teams create campaigns around directors by releasing stories…

Films are an excellent medium to reveal societal codes and rules, often through exceptional characters who question or overturn them. Haifaa Al Mansour, the first Saudi woman to make a film, and Berlinale Talents alumna from 2009, returns to discuss …

How do actors choose their roles and collaborate with directors? To what extent do they want to be involved in creating characters? How has the selection of their roles influenced their career so far? Renowned German actress Nina Hoss (Barbara, Gold)…

“I have a strong need in my work to be criticized and to know where I was wrong or right, but with evidence.” (Jean-Luc Godard) Do filmmakers need criticism? Are film critics writing to filmmakers? And are filmmakers listening? Critics Diego Lere…

There has been a recent surge of films that explore a hybrid approach to narrative through the use of documentary techniques, and a conscious blending of the constructed and the observational. Sophie Hyde (52 Tuesdays), Warwick Thornton (The Darkside…

Preeminent visual effects art director Pierre Buffin who has worked on film such as Nymphomaniac, Life of Pi and Avatar, and Lucy Ainsworth-Taylor who has produced visual effects for Game of Thrones, Cloud Atlas, Skyfall and The Monuments Men, will d…